| Armstrong has a team that almost took the Presidents' Trophy. (Getty Images) |
Your finalists for the General Manager of the Year award in the NHL? Doug Armstrong of the Blues, David Poile of the Predators and Dale Tallon of the Panthers.
This award doesn't need much explanation, it's one of the very few in hockey that kind of gives its meaning away in the title. It would behoove GMs to do well at their job for a year's time if they want to win it. Shocking criteria, I know.
There is a common theme we see a lot of the time in this award, and it's certainly the case here. Who gets more with less? None of the Blues, Preds or Panthers have particularly high payrolls nor come from overly rich hockey markets, but they each built rosters to reach the playoffs and, in the case of the Preds and Blues so far, past the first round. The Panthers can join them with a win over New Jersey on Tuesday night or Thursday.
Poile has been a staple more or less in this category for a few years now as he has built a perennially strong team in Nashville. His moves this year included re-signing Pekka Rinne, keeping Shea Weber around for the season and bringing in Alex Radulov -- although that one sort of fell into his lap. He also made a couple of deadline acquisitions in Hal Gill and Paul Gaustad to help solidify the Predators as a true Cup threat.
Armstrong made maybe the biggest individual of any GM this season early when he fired coach Davis Payne 13 games in the season. He then landed Ken Hitchcock to replace him and, well, the Blues pretty much took off. But that's not all Armstrong did. He also picked up Brian Elliott with a two-way contract in the offseason and did a very good job last summer of keeping his team together with extensions.
Tallon undertook a massive overhaul and pulled it off in the span of just over a year. Last trade deadline he was dealing away anybody with a pulse and some value for anything in return, mostly draft picks. It gave him a largely open tablet for the team this season and he brought in nine new players over the summer alone. He also hired Kevin Dineen to be his coach. The Panthers returned to the playoffs for the first time in 12 years.
They are all good candidates, but if you read our Awards Races feature this season, you would know I think Tallon is the most deserving of this. The fact that he had to do so much in one season and he got a division title out of it? That's pretty amazing. It's not like any of the GMs over the past decade have shown it's easy to do that in Florida.
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